Why Do Women Cheat?

5 Women Reveal Why They Cheated

2. Wanting To Explore Other Options

"My longest relationship spanned over the better part of five years, through the end of high school and most of college," says Hannah, 25. "I cheated on him pretty regularly. I just wanted to experience what it was like with other guys, but I didn't want to break up with him in order to do it. I knew it was wrong, and I felt bad, but for a long time I really thought that I was going to marry this guy, and marriage is, well, forever. I felt like I had been cheated out of experiencing what it was like to be single, but I didn't want to lose him in order to experiment, if that makes any sense. Spoiler: We didn't get married. Which is probably for the best."

Marriage and family therapist Nicole Richardson says that this isn't just something that exclusively affects high school sweethearts. That itch to explore other options can happen at any stage in life, and women in particular start to feel drawn toward drastically changing up their relationship norms. "Women who want a walk on the wild side go astray," she says. "There are a lot of women that don't want to leave their relationships because there are aspects of their relationship that serve their lifestyle or fit the image they want to present," she explains, "but an affair can offer the validation or excitement they are seeking." In short, it's not a bad idea to give into your lady's requests to shake things up from time to time.

3. Being Mistreated

"I was once in a relationship that started off so well, but by the end of it he did everything in his power to make me feel like I couldn't do anything right," says Leslie, 31. "If I didn't cook dinner, he told me I was lazy and useless. If I cooked dinner, he'd tell me that he wished I would've just ordered in because I was so bad at it. I'd try to do him a favor by cleaning up around his place when I'd stay over, but then he'd accuse me of thinking he was a slob, or a man child. All of a sudden there'd be words in my mouth when really all I had intended to do was something nice for him. He went away to visit his family one weekend, and I went to a friend's party. There was a guy there who complimented the cupcakes I had made, and told me that I was an excellent 'pastry chef,' and that he was sure that I made some guy really happy. I almost started to cry. We slept together that night. I broke up with that awful boyfriend the next day."

Particularly in long-term, high stakes relationships (ie: matrimony), there's a level of mistreatment that inevitably starts to occur. Typically the smaller scale, taking your partner for granted type of mistreatment. But according to relationship and sex psychotherapist Dr. Fran Walfish, the longer it goes on and the more prominent it becomes in the relationship, the higher the chances are that a woman will cheat. "Women cheat when they have sustained long periods of mistreatment in the relationship," she says. "These cases of cheating lack the healthy communication skills necessary to talk about the problems and issues underlying within the relationship that, if dealt with directly, could avoid infidelity."